Daring To Imagine
by LuxaLucifer
Summary: Elrond looked up and met his eyes, and Gil-galad sucked a sudden breath in. His lover's eyes were the same- deep gray and as calm as the sea. Without trying to, he started grinning. Elrond/Gil-galad


Disclaimer- I don't own it.

I wrote this a while ago. Then I forgot to post it. Gil-galad is reborn in Valinor- Elrond/Gil-galad.

Enjoy! :)

* * *

"Ereinion."

Gil-galad opened his eyes to a soft light that illuminated a garden of beautiful flowers. He swallowed. After millennia in the Halls of Mandos, this was a sensory overload.

"The last of the Kings has woken."

He glanced over and saw a woman with a gentle smile looking down on him. Her soft dress was gray, and she seemed to shine with an inner light.

"Estë," he whispered. "Those from the Blessed Realm oft spoke of you."

Then it clicked, and he realized where he must be.

"Elrond!" he gasped, and her gentle smile widened slightly.

"He is well," she said. "And waiting."

She rose and left him. Gil-galad sat up and noticed he was naked. Thinking he shouldn't be embarrassed, he tried to calmly reach for the robes near him, but ended up scrambling for them at the thought of someone spotting him.

He was in Valinor. This thought both excited and terrified him.

He looked around and noticed that the sun seemed softer, dimmer. He disregarded the feeling and stood, the feeling of having actual legs instead of only his spiritual body alien. He took a few steps and promptly ran into an Elf.

The Elf he ran into was unfamiliar to him, but she greeted him with a wide smile. "King Gil-galad? You've taken so long!"

"You...know me?"

"Of course. I lived in Lindon, long ages ago. I saw you from afar once."

"Do you know..." managed Gil-galad. His voice felt strange, unused. "Do you know how I can get to Alqualondë?"

She tiled her head. "Alqualondë? What do you need to be there for?"

"My...lover...they said if they ever made it here, they would love to live in Alqualondë."

Her smiled became tinged with sadness. "My liege, many things have changed since the Second Age. I would find out where they lived before rushing off to Alqualondë."

He nodded mutely. Of course, she was right.

"Where should I go?" he asked quietly.

She pointed to a far off house. "The house of Lórien. You will be welcomed there. A Maia will tell you where you need to go."

* * *

Gil-galad adjusted his dark blue tunic as he knocked on the door of the large house. He was in Tirion upon Túna, waiting for Elrond's wife to answer the door.

The door opened, and he tried to smile, ending up looking like a constipated horse. She invited him in nonetheless.

She was slender and graceful, with silver hair and delicate features. She was quiet and unassuming and everything that Gil-galad wasn't. What had made Elrond marry her?

She looked him up and down. "I was young when I first met you," she said, and her voice was smooth and soft. "Very young. I hardly remember you. I always wanted to meet the man that haunted my marriage."

Gil-galad was surprised by this statement, but he didn't show it. "Where's Elrond?"

She sat in a chair, legs crossed, hands folded. "We don't live together. I came to Valinor to be healed, and I am, but my love for Elrond is gone. We never were passionate, and now when I look at him I only see my own pain reflected in his eyes. He has never forgiven himself for not being able to heal me, and my presence hurts him."

"You're being awfully honest with me."

"It's been seven thousand years since he came to Valinor. We are in the sixth age now. I have had time enough to think."

Gil-galad couldn't meet her eyes. "Where is he? At the sea, with his parents?"

She couldn't meet his eyes either. "Elrond is...one of my greatest regrets. I visit him occasionally and I worry for him, but it isn't enough. He has spent much of his time in Valinor alone."

Gil-galad found that his mouth was dry. "Alone? Why alone?"

She raised her gaze to meet his, and he found himself looking past thick lashes into startlingly blue eyes.

"Not one of our children are in Valinor, Ereinion. All three chose mortality, and Elrond watched them do so. The grief weighs heavily upon him."

Seven thousand years. Seven thousand years with no wife and no children and a long-dead lover.

"And his parents?"

"They are secluded and only spend time with each other. I believe Elrond visited them a few times, but they live in a different reality. They have no time for long-lost sons."

Celebrían reached over and clasped Gil-galad's large hands with her small ones. "Ereinion, I _do_ care for him. I spend thousands of years at his side. Even if he never forgot you, we shared a comfortable sort of love. So I want you to go to him. I want you to go to him and never leave him, because he has been left over and over again and it needs to stop."

He squeezed her hands. "Will he still want me?"

"There was never a day that he did not think of you, Ereinion. I learned to accept that."

"What's...I mean, how...how lonely _is_ he?"

"He's become...well, I guess what you would call a country doctor," she said, a hint of a smile of her face. "He deals with childbirth and children who break bones mostly. There aren't many injuries here. I thought he was happy with this until..."

"Until?"

The beautiful woman's delicate features were troubled, and Gil-galad's stomach plunged.

"Until about fifty years ago. He was getting water from the well when he fell and broke his back, and there was no one there for him. He had to drag himself back to his cottage and treat himself, completely alone. It was three weeks before anyone came by and found out."

Gil-galad closed his eyes and tried not to imagine his Elrond, his strong, loving Elrond, paralyzed by the fear and loneliness that must have overtaken him then.

"Since then, he's been depressed. You look in his eyes and you no longer see Lord Elrond of Imladris, but an empty husk. Save my husband, Ereinion. Please."

Gil-galad smiled softly. "I would go to him no matter the obstacle, whether he loved me or not."

"That is where we differ. I wallow here in guilt, because I am too afraid to face him."

"Forgive yourself, Celebrían. You're not at fault for what happened to you. You need to live your life."

"Strong words coming from one who's been living for a couple weeks."

"I _am_ a King."

* * *

Elrond bent down, letting his hair fall in front of his face as he did so. He smiled softly at the child whose shoulder he had just bandaged.

"Try not to go falling out of trees, young one."

"Not to fall out?" replied the child, an unusually bright Elf for these Ages. "What about not to climb?"

"Ah, I cannot hope to prevent you from climbing up trees." Elrond straightened up slowly, wincing slightly as his back complained. He'd have to restock on herbs again.

The child tugged at his long sleeve. "Mother says you're very old."

"Yes, well, your mother is very young."

He smiled slightly wider, and the child smiled back before running out of his cottage back to his family.

Once he was gone, Elrond glanced at a pill bottle hidden behind pots of herbs and medicines. He fervently wished the Valar would open the road for two-way travel- maybe then he could get some more of those painkillers the humans had invented.

He eased into his favorite chair by the window, opening the book in front of him at the neatly placed bookmark. He wistfully remembered the days when small hands would drop his books and hastily replace the bookmark in the wrong spot. He hadn't found a misplaced bookmark in millennia.

He closed his eyes briefly and put the past out of his mind. He couldn't dwell on that anymore. It did him no good. He had now spent longer in Valinor than he had in Middle-earth.

He was just nodding off when he heard a knock at his door. Shaking himself awake, he rose and smiled grimly when his back only gave him the faintest complaint.

He tried not to look at how translucent his skin was as he reached for the door. He was _not_ going to fade. He refused to.

As he was turning the knob he heard another knock. So impatient. It reminded him of Gil-galad, of how he could never wait for anything. It was with this nostalgic smile that he opened the door and gazed into a face that he had never dared imagine he would see again.

"Ereinion," he breathed.

* * *

Gil-galad would never forget the look on Elrond's face when that door opened. He saw shock and hope and love and raw grief brought to the surface, all in one brief look.

Biting his lip in the exact same way he did over ten thousand years earlier, Elrond stepped aside. "Welcome to my home, my liege." His voice was tightly controlled, and Gil-galad felt a stab of hurt hit him before rationalizing Elrond's restraint as something he'd developed to deal with the pervasive loneliness. He hoped Elrond did not hold a grudge for something. He took a deep breath and tried to remember Estë's words- he is waiting.

Elrond's house was small and neat, with bookshelves lining all the walls. It was much the same as Gil-galad remembered, but with a few striking differences- Elrond had used to prefer green to blue, and this house was very closed off compared to the airy rooms of Gil-galad's memory.

Elrond sank into an old armchair. His hands were shaking, and Gil-galad wanted nothing more than to run to him and embrace him. He forced himself to sit across Elrond and took in Elrond's face.

He was no longer young. There was none of the youthful joy or the brash decision-making young Elf. When they had been lovers, Elrond had been the first to contradict Gil-galad in council. He had been easy-going and hardworking and gave his affection freely.

His love had changed. The lines around his eyes were far deeper, and his face seemed to have settled into a human's equivalent of their late thirties. His robes were more somber, and instead of incricate braids, his long dark hair was loose around his shoulders, which seemed to sag slightly.

Elrond looked up and met his eyes, and Gil-galad sucked a sudden breath in. His lover's eyes were the same- deep gray and as calm as the sea. Without trying to, he started grinning.

Elrond smiled back, his smile growing more and more by the second. They just sat there grinning like idiots until Elrond said, "Oh, Ereinion, you haven't changed at all."

And he burst into tears.

* * *

Gil-galad held Elrond tight in his arms and promised both of them he would never let go again.

"I'm glad you're back."

Elrond's fingers ghosted Gil-galad's chest. Gil-galad pulled Elrond closer, loving the feel of Elrond's sweaty chest against his. He pressed his head against Elrond's and breathed in the smell of Elrond's hair.

* * *

Reviews are love! :)


End file.
